A wide variety of consumer products are frequently packaged in aerosol cans. These products include paints, hair spray, insecticides, herbicides, air fresheners, perfumes, fragrances, antimicrobial agents, cleaners, anti-sticking agents, and the like. Even though packaging these types of products in aerosol cans has been well accepted by consumers for decades, the continued use of aerosol cans for packaging consumer products is coming under greater and greater scrutiny. Most of the criticism relating to the use of aerosol cans originates from the thesis that aerosols are harmful to the environment. Additionally, the aerosol cans themselves are typically discarded after being used and generally end up in landfills as solid waste. In actual practice the steel of which aerosol cans are made is seldom recycled.
Aerosol cans also have the drawback of potentially exploding and causing personal injury and/or property damage if they are exposed to high temperatures during storage or transportation. This danger of explosion limits the manner in which products that are packaged in aerosol cans are transported, stored, and utilized.
Power sprayers that can be used to apply liquid compositions, such as paints, insecticides, lubricants, and the like to substrates are a viable alternative to aerosols. In fact, power sprayers circumvent many of the problems associated with the use of aerosols. For instance, the use of power sprayers does not present the explosion hazard or the environmental concerns associated with aerosol products. However, power sprayers are frequently awkward to handle and difficult to clean after being used.